There is a growing trend of individuals leaving large companies and forming their own enterprises with a handful of employees. Upon doing so, one of the first things these people realize is that they miss the tools they were accustomed to using within their former larger company. One of these primary tools is a small PBX (Private Branch Exchange) system or key system for interconnecting a number of local telephone sets to a fewer number of central office ("CO") lines from the local telephone company or a private telecommunications network. Another tool often missed is some type of voice mail system (note, "voice mail system" and "voice processing system" are used interchangeably herein).
The problem for such companies is obtaining a telephone system and a voice mail system that work well together, since typically such systems are manufactured by different companies. The industry is currently separated into two markets, one of those being the voice mail or voice processing market and the other one being the telephone system, or PBX, market. The result is that separate telephone and voice mail systems must be purchased and interconnected to operate correctly and efficiently.
Referring to FIGS. 2 and 13, there is illustrated a prior art technique for combining telephone and voice mail systems. The dilemma is how to provide communication between the telephone system (PBX) 200 and the voice mail ("VM") system 201. Communication with the telephone system 200 is typically done through either the CO lines or on the station side. Since CO lines are more of a precious resource than the station connections, the prior art system shown in FIG. 2 communicates between the voice mail system 201 and the telephone system 200 on the station side using connection 202. Connection 202 may be an analog telephone line or via an EKT (electronic key telephone) integrated connection. Alternatively, a proprietary EKT line 204 may be coupled to an analog telephone adapter 205, which uses analog line 203 to couple to voice mail system 201.
Such systems are typically configured by programming the telephone system 200 to perform a transfer to ring a group of extensions that are connected to the voice mail system 201 upon one or more occurrences, such as when the outside call into the telephone system 200 to a particular extension receives a busy signal or the extension rings a certain number of times. At this point in time the telephone call resides within telephone system 200 (step 1301). Next, the telephone system 200 performs the same physical functions as an operator by transferring the call using a flash-hook and then dialing the extension number (step 1302) pertaining to the voice mail system 201 in order to transfer a call to the voice mail system 201. At this point in time, the telephone call now resides within the voice mail system 201, which may play a greeting to the incoming call (step 1303). In response to the greeting played by the voice mail system 201, the caller may dial digits, which are detected by the voice mail system 201 (step 1304). Thereafter, the voice mail system may record a message spoken by the caller (the incoming call resides in the voice mail system 201; step 1306), or the voice mail system 201 may transfer the call to a desired destination, such as a station extension (the incoming call is now resident within the telephone system 200; step 1305). In-band signalling, a serial connection, etc. may be added to further improve the system, but it is still configured as two separate systems--a telephone system 200 coupled to a separate voice mail system 201.
Another prior art system not shown herein is the use of a personal computer with a voice adapter card inserted therein for interconnecting to a telephone system. Again, the same problems arise, since there is a separate voice mail system coupled to a telephone system where software in the personal computer operates the voice mail portion.
Thus, there is a need in the art for an integrated system providing both telephone and voice mail capabilities.